1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to recovery techniques for use in mobile networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to protecting the Transport Address (TA) which is a current Care of Address of a mobile subscriber is reachable from loss and after Call State Control Function (CSCF) crashes and after reset situations of a network element realizing CSCF functionality.
2. Description of the Related Art
Technical Report TR 23.821 V1.0.1, published July 2000 by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and available on the Internet at http://wwww.3gpp.org, discloses the specifications of a 3G AII-IP mobile network and this report is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
FIG. 1 illustrates the architecture of the network disclosed in the above-noted Technical Report. The elements shown with asterisks are elements which have been duplicated for figure layout purposes only. These duplicated elements belong to the same logical element in the reference model.
Unfortunately, the network disclosed in the Technical Report fails to include any protection of the TA of a 3G AII-IP subscriber from loss. Furthermore, the network disclosed in the Technical Report fails to protect the IP address of a subscriber in the case of a reset situation of a network element realizing CSCF functionality, that is, a CSCF, thereby preventing recovery after a reset of the network element. Still furthermore, the network disclosed in the Technical Report fails to protect the location information of a subscriber after a CSCF crash, thereby preventing recovery after a CSCF crash.